The women's edition is really entertaining. They are riding well and going big. The inspiration for the next generation must be huge, and I'm excited to see what the now-teens are doing in the next 5 years.
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The women's edition is really entertaining. They are riding well and going big. The inspiration for the next generation must be huge, and I'm excited to see what the now-teens are doing in the next 5 years.
Yeah, really cool to see the women do their thing. There were a few large sends. Glad everyone made it down safely.
Looking forward to the men's comp tomorrow. Just from some of the instagram clips I've seen, there's some rowdy shit going down (per usual).
That gap is fucking huge!!
Brendog robbed again. His line was absolutely ridiculous. What a joke.
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Maybe the best riding of any rampage i can remember. Ridiculous lines, and a pretty wide variety. Some years it feels like 70% of the riders are doing more or less the same lines with variations on the same tricks. This year it seems like only a few people were on the same line. Super entertaining to watch.
And yeah, Brendog got robbed (again). I can quibble with some of the other scores (would've put t-mac on top, TVS in second), but Fairclough is the only one that just felt completely wrong. Although admittedly, scoring a gnarly tech line against a bunch of massive tricks is kind of impossible.
*writing this during the wind hold before 2nd runs, so if 2nd runs happen, maybe all will be rectified. Although Brendog has already said he's not gonna take another run.
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Faircloughs line was my favorite for sure. There should be an award for most creative because that was definitely it imho not to mention the technical aspect of it all. F that was tech!
At this point I kind of wish there was 2 separate comps, one for slopestyle and one for freeride. I'm not going to say what semenuk did wasn't absolutely rad, since it was, but his line this year looked 0% freeride in terms of how much building went into perfectly sculpting his entire line to be ideal for slope tricks. It just didn't seem like a blend of both like some his past runs, and I feel that way with quite a few of the runs seen yesterday.
Brendog pushing away the redbull can they offered him and saying "to be honest, I'm probably not coming back" during his interview was epic. He knows he got fucked two years in a row now and no longer sees the point of doing it. Pretty sad really because it was an incredible line that he rode and that kind of riding was where rampage started. All the spinny flippy shit needs to stay at crankworx.
Fairclough's run was fun to watch and exciting... everyone else, although ridiculously talented, was like watching a slopestyle snowboard event. Just a bunch of flips and spins off (huge) manicured jumps and to paved landings that all looked the same. I probably said the same thing last year. And the year before.
I agree with Bamboo, if they're going to award the highest scores to the guy who does the most flips and spins, then at least create another category for freeride or whatever they want to call it.
The geoblocked live feed in the U.S. says everything you need to know. The intended audience is your average ESPN viewer, not core mountain bikers. The general population has a much easier time appreciating a big trick off a big drop than they do a line like Fairclough's.
That said, the event for people who appreciate precise, trickless riding in rowdy terrain is really hardline these days. Rampage is about going big. And as with skiing / snowboarding, there's kind of a limit as to how big they can realistically go, so instead of continually going bigger, riders start adding tricks. It still feels way, way different than slopestyle.
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Watched the whole thing, but missed this somehow. Time stamp of him pushing away the redbull can? Amazing.Quote:
Originally Posted by NW_SKIER
Edit: Nevermind I found it. He didn't push it away, just refused one when they offered.
He's also sponsored by monster energy. Can't be advertising for the enemy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whiteroom_Guardian
Great competition. Amazing that to win you need to throw a trick off every air. When this started they were just probably happy to survive the air. Bienvenido was probably thankfull he was wearing gloves. To weigh in on the Fairclough ride. I enjoyed watching it. I may be wrong but I think all those riders were capable of riding it. Where as there is a level of commitment to lead with your head over a 50ft jump at a high rate of speed not all of them were capable of. Not a slight to anyone just an opinion from the general population.
Agreed. I'd say there were quite a few competitors that could ride Brendogs line, like he rode it. Conversely, I don't think Brendog could ride some of the other lines, like the other competitors rode them. He's a great technical rider, but I've never seen him go *that* big and he definitely doesn't have the bag of tricks.Quote:
Originally Posted by BFD
Which isn't to say I don't enjoy watching him ride, and the vision to build his line is pretty cool. And while I don't think he should have won (or podiumed), he was definitely underscored.
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Highlight reel seemed very "big mnt jib" Super cool, but very bike park like
Does Tippie annoy anyone else? Seems so contrived and washed up.. Maybe a really nice guy in public? no idea Maybe just to extroverted for me
Tippie is legit an excellent human. He’s just a lot.
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glad to hear, cuz its the "a lot" part that is all I see on the screenQuote:
Originally Posted by joetron
i didn't follow this rampage too closely but what i appreciate most about brendog is his vision/digging. other riders could probably ride his stuff but don't think they would make the lines he does and get them rideable easily. not sure how he got 4th and 10 points higher in 19 when he did the same route but ended up worse on an improved version of itQuote:
Originally Posted by toast2266
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Exactly. We've been having this exact conversation every year for 5-10 years. Calling it slopestyle is silly. There's a catch berm at the bottom of the Price is Right drop that if you blow it you go flying off a 100 footer.Quote:
Originally Posted by toast2266
edit: looks like Zink broke 6 ribs and collapsed a lung. There's no "slopestyle" course where a mildly squirrelly landing produces that result.
The level has gone up a lot in 5 years. Though I certainly agree he was underscored.Quote:
Originally Posted by NuclearNachos21
very true, was comparing for fun sincd semenuk got 1st with a 92 and scores for places match up suprising close for years. will miss him if he decides not to continue showing upQuote:
Originally Posted by Dantheman
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I don't really watch this stuff, but is it possible the organizers are influencing the judging to avoid the really big stuff?
If the goal is to keep going bigger and bigger, eventually someone's going to end up dead. I can't imagine red bull wants the evolution to head that way, so rewarding multiple smaller tricks vs the one big trick could be a way to try and shift the trend to a safer competition.
That is absolutely the case. It's not even covert. After Paul Bass broke his back and the whole #fuckrampage thing happened the organizers made a very conscious decision to move the comp in that direction.
Yup. I much prefer watching a line like that vs the park style in such rowdy terrain.Quote:
Originally Posted by raisingarizona13
Spinny twisty no hands stuff obviously adds a various degree of difficulty to their lines, but it just doesn't do it for me personally. I feel that way about ski/snowboard also. I like a clean tech line slicing through gnar and sure throw in a backie Seth style
It's exactly the same in skiing with the FWT. A clean run will score better than a bigger, looser run. Smaller technical tricks will score above a massive air with a backslap / sketchy landing. Control is rewarded more than balls.Quote:
Originally Posted by ironhippy
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Rampage is more akin to redbull cold rush and cascade than it is to a FWT event... There is a big mountain element to it and a slopestyle element to it. Brendog was full on big mountain, I think only a handful of those guys would ride his two chutes, but he does not have the bag of tricks. He talks pretty candidly about that stuff and knows he picks his lines because he doesn't have the deep bag off of the silly stepdowns the other guys are hitting.
Rampage used to be one of my favorites, I follow the builds, watch a replay and am done... I still watch but it doesn't have the same cache it used to for me.
I don't know what a big mountain comp in mtb would look like nowadays, rampage is probably as close as we'd get.
FWT also does a better job of injecting new, young talent. Love Rampage and I know there are some young guns, but you also have guys who have literally participated in every one since 2001 and have more/less built their careers on this single annual event.
Imo. Old-school Rampage free-rides sell, but whos buying anymore (other than pinkbikers:wink:). Well done Brendog, unfortunately all the kids want slopestyle/freestyle. It's all business for redbull. Perfectly manicured step-down slopestyle with added consequence is just progression, with Semenek advertising as such on a single crown only speaks to the broader slopestyle market. Imagine if FWT allowed crews to build in-runs and booters or other (freestyle) features at say Hukuba or Kicking Horse or fiberbrunn , itd turn into something similar to TRice's Natural Selections freestyle spectacle. maybe fwt is already thinking about that.
Natural Selection is another good analogous event. Still rad, but not big mountain freeride in that traditional sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by skiSilent_skiDeep
I wasn't referring to the format of the event. Just referring to the judging and rewarding clean landings over larger, looser airs.Quote:
Originally Posted by grskier
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Except the judging for this year’s rampage was still all over the place even in that regard. Strait fumbled his tail whip and only a last second recovery saved what could have been a nasty crash, and yet he still scored higher than Brendan who laced all his features clean and in control.Quote:
Originally Posted by toast2266
“The boos were loud, and they reverberated through the canyon”
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Yeah, no argument there. Fairclough's score was way off.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spooky
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Yeah, Strait's score was bullshit. Seemed to hold for everyone not named Kyle Strait, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spooky
I was thinking about the slopestyle comparison today. Anyone saying that clearly hasn't seen a Crankworx event recently. Those guys are throwing multiple rotations, multiple combinations, and sometimes both off every hit. It's basically backflip double tailwhip to late double bar-level combos for the whole run.
Yeah agreed. Don’t think he deserved to win, but a 76 almost seemed like a deliberate snub. Should have been top five IMO, and it was definitely the run I enjoyed the most watching it live.Quote:
Originally Posted by toast2266
The other weird thing about the judging this year is that it seems to go against the justifications the judges issued last year when Berreclough came out defending their scores against last year’s backlash. I’ve only copied a bit of his explanation below because it’s so long:
“The hot topic right now is Bienve, and how his score was so low because everyone looks at the big features that prominently stick out in everyone's mind, and what everyone focuses on. So for Bienve's run, his upper portion of his line was one of the mellowest ways to get off the top, and he didn't have a lot of speed on it, so he was riding it fairly timidly. And then as soon as he got roughly around the halfway mark of his run, he really turned it up.
He flipped off the step down onto the lily pad, which was rad, and then he went into his front flip over the canyon gap. At the end of the day, those three features [Editor's note: he forgot to mention the big three drop right above the lily pad flip, but is referencing it here as one of Bienve's three big moves.—Ed] were amazing, and they were over really big features. The canyon gap I believe is 72-73 ft, I'd have to check my notes, but tip to tip, it's one of the biggest. But keep in mind with that canyon gap, the sightlines are really good, you're looking at everything when you're coming into it, and everything's super buff and manicured. You have a nice mellow in-run, because you're coming off a drop. Obviously flipping into the lily pad is super nasty, but then he's got a really long run out into that, so he's got a lot of time to shut it down on the brakes if he doesn't want to hit it, and he's got a lot of time to check his speed and gauge how fast he's going. And then on the landing itself, the landing is super big and wide. It was one of the only features that the event actually pre-built for the riders just because it's such a prominent feature, and there's just no way that athletes can take on a build like that. And then after that, he goes into a couple of tricks down on the lower stuff. And I hope everyone knows that this is a big mountain freeride event. And when you do a bunch of tricks down low on dirt jump-style features, you're not going to get rewarded as well versus doing those big tricks up high on the mountain where there's exposure.
This brings me to some of my other points. It is a big mountain freeride event and not a slope style event. If you are doing your tricks up high on the ridges where there's a ton of exposure, you're going to get rewarded very well. And that's was the case where athletes that were riding ridges that were skinny and had a ton of exposure they definitely got rewarded.”
Then fast forward to this year and Semenuk takes it with on the oppo whip off the lily pad and the flip whip lower down, with pretty much his whole run being on the more groomed features that had less exposure. Insane skill and execution, but doesn’t really line up with what Berreclough was saying after last year’s. Then you consider Cam Zink winning last year with that enormous step down backie, but then TVS doesn’t even podium this year with a similarly large step down front, which is an even more committing and less common trick.
So some of the judging didn't really make sense to me just looking at this year’s in isolation, but add in what the judges said to justify last year’s scores and it makes even less sense.
Pinkbike Podcast has a somewhat interesting discussion about Rampage. Highlights:
1) they’re obviously judging their friends emotionally (Kyle getting extra points instead of negative points for a mistake)
2) it’s super weird that judges talk to each other before scoring.
3) there is no reason to pick a more creative line or do anything that showcases downhill riding skill.
4) no transparency.
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1) yeah, Kyle's score is an outlier in the positive direction, just as Brendog's is an outlier in the negative direction. I think that's pretty common though; they (and many other judges) seem somewhat less concerned about getting the ranking right in the lower half of the field.Quote:
Originally Posted by jm2e
2) this doesn't seem that weird to me. It's pretty common. See: every single criminal trial in America. The jury talks amongst themselves.
3) disagreed. See t-mac's line. It wasn't his tricks that landed him on the podium, it was his burly line.
4) agreed that the judges need to do a better job of stating the criteria for their judging.
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Scoring always seems to be an issue at the end. Pretty incredible what these guys are doing regardless of points.
That’s where I’m at with all this. A lot of holy shit’s come out of my mouth and I’m blown away they can actually ride their bikes carrying those enormous testicles.
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/tom-va...page-2024.html
TVS not holding back. I honestly wonder if the judges/organizers think giant front flips are just too dangerous and don't want to reward it, even if stomped.
I rode with an old school sc guy today who knows everyone from the beginnings around here. He mentioned rampage and I said it was typical crazy but the scores where hard to understand. He follows with he knows two of the judges well and its so hard with a subjective event. And I just agreed and the discussion regarding scoring ended. I don't think he knows of any ground rules they're given and I'm not sure anyone does. Seems like it wouldn't be spoken about if there was...idk.